Swedish filmmaker Johan Renck’s sci-fi relationship cosmonaut movie, “Spaceman,” starring Adam Sandler, is out in the universe and on Netflix now (read our review). A type of existential lonely astronaut in space drama that co-stars Paul Dano and Carey Mulligan— one of the most left-of-field movies Adam Sandler has ever made—I spoke to him about that film at length here.
But Renck, who has spent many years working in television and won Emmys and DGA awards for his work on HBO’s “Chernobyl,” also worked on the original version of “Dune: Prophecy,” then called “Dune: Sisterhood.” That series was seemingly riddled with problems; it changed showrunners many times, and last we heard, the pilot was ultimately scrapped. I tried to get the story out of Renck, but to hear it from him, the situation wasn’t so much drama but par for the course of how TV filmmaking goes sometimes. Renck also spoke a little bit about the Saddam Hussein prison movie starring Barry Keoghan, which he’s shooting next, and revealed the film will be shot in the fall. Here’s the last half of our conversation from “Spaceman,” again, you can read the bulk of it here.
You worked on “Dune: Prophecy” initially.
I was fiddling with that for a moment, but yeah, I’m not involved in that at all. At least, I think—I might still be an executive producer on it, but I’m not involved in it now.
It sounds like there were many things happening behind the scenes, a lot of changes in showrunners, and that kind of drama. Did that change your opinion of working in television at all?
No, I mean, no. I mean, this is what kind of happens sometimes. I’ve been through similar things before. Like I said before, I’m not tremendously interested in episodic television as a director. Anyway, it’s been many years since I was involved in that [show] in any shape or form. For example. I did a pilot, which is like ten years ago now, for a show on Netflix called “Bloodline,” which was like you’re part of setting something up. You’re part of it, but at the same time, the whole episodic TV thing is much more of a committee because you have a showrunner, you have the writers, you have the director, you have various producers, you have the network, and all the actors involved that are trying to find their putting in footing that may or may not go on for years, you know?
So, it’s a very different kind of apparatus than a film. And again, a limited series makes sense to me because there’s one director, I’m the director of it, the writer is the writer, and I do the A to Z in it. I understand that, but when it comes to that type of episodic television…
The reason I got involved to some extent with “Dune” was that I’m a massive fan of the David Lynch “Dune” movie, the original one from the eighties. I love that movie. It’s so absurd, bizarre, weird, dark, and twisted. So, for me, it was like, ‘Yeah, okay, if they’re doing a TV series, that would be interesting to see if they because what they said earlier on was like, “This doesn’t have to have anything to do with the movies, the [Denis] Villeneuve movies, this is its own animal, and we can do whatever we want with it,” so that’s where it started.
But as you said, there was a lot of stuff that was going on, but no one can be held responsible, or showrunners that got exchanged, and the original idea of the story completely changed course also because it used to be called, “Dune: Sisterhood,” and then it changed names and became a completely different thing. Again, that’s something that can happen in episodic TV, and it’s just like, either you are okay being in and functioning in that environment of that kind, but it never has been or will it be something for me.
Like, the Kessler brothers are friends of mine, and we had a good time making “Bloodline,” but at the same time, [TV] doesn’t fulfill me as much as I need it to because I don’t like doing something and then walking away from it and then some other people are going to start turning it into what they want to turn it into. And you have to be okay with that if you’re working in TV.
I hear that. So what’s next?
I’m doing a movie about the last six months of Saddam Hussein’s life in prison before his execution and the relationship he made with the 12 young American military police who guarded him. So, it’s based on and inspired by actual events, you know? Of course, there’s a really compelling book called “The Prisoner in His Palace” that deals with this period of time. And so you have, in one way, it’s a relationship drama between particularly one soldier who’s going to be played by Barry Keegan and Saddam Hussein.
Obviously, it’s within the shadow of the Iraq war, all this fiddling with the problems surrounding the weapons of mass destruction, the real motivations behind the war, and all that. So, it’s part of prison film, it’s part of courtroom drama because it deals with, to some extent, Saddam’s trial, and it’s part “The Silence of The Lambs” almost, in terms of how these young, susceptible men get so enthralled by this charismatic, charming dictator. We’re going to shoot that this fall.
Johan Renck’s “Spaceman” is on Netflix now. It’s unclear if “Dune: Prophecy” will be released in 2024 or 2025.